All of which is to say, 2026 is likely to be another turbulent and unprecedented year on the immigration beat. This newsletter, and the Globe’s tireless newsroom, will be there to keep you informed.
It’s worth taking a pause and a step back to digest just how tumultuous the past year has been. Trump wasted no time once taking office for the second time, launching his deportation plans, and the fear they sparked throughout Massachusetts and the country was tangible, captured in a late January story by Giulia. “If they grab me and send me back to my country, and I have to leave my children … that strikes terror in me,” one mother told her.
In March, US immigration agents seized Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Tufts graduate student from Turkey, off a Somerville street, whisking her off to a detention facility in Louisiana, despite a judge’s orders not to remove her from Massachusetts without prior notice. Bystanders thought they had witnessed a kidnapping. The video of her arrest and the story itself went viral. Looking back, Öztürk’s story would mark a watershed for many, bringing the new reality of Trump’s immigration policy to life with visceral texture.
The consequences for children
Looking back over the past year of Globe reporting, I was struck by the upheaval the administration’s deportation push has meant for children, specifically.
There were those young people caught up in the deportation machine, such as 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Brazilian native, whose May 31 arrest while on his way to volleyball practice made national headlines. He shared his story earlier this year with my colleague Marcela Rodrigues, including the trauma of being pulled away from his family and put in a cell with 30 other immigrants, his lost sense of innocence, and the continued threat of deportation that hangs over him now.
We saw children caught in the middle, including a 5-year-old Leominster girl whose parents said federal immigration agents held outside their home in an effort to pressure the parents to turn themselves over to agents. Or the thousands of children who have left Massachusetts school districts as a result of their family’s fear of deportation, according to school officials.
And then there are the children left behind when a parent is detained. As Giulia documented in heart-wrenching detail, some are too young to understand what has happened. And even if they do, the psychological consequences can be devastating.
Life as we know it, transformed
Trump’s immigration agenda has transformed New England in ways large and small over the past year. Before the crackdown, the region had few facilities for immigration enforcement, but as the Globe documented this fall, that has changed dramatically, as federal officials built out “a prolific and aggressive machine” that is arresting and processing more detainees, more quickly.
It is worth noting that most Massachusetts voters remain opposed to Trump’s agenda, with about 55 percent saying they oppose the policy of deporting immigrants living in the United States without authorization, according to a November Suffolk/Globe poll. Yet more than a third – 36 percent – say they support it.
It’s impossible, really, to quantify all the ways this new era of mass deportations influences the interlocking web of lives that makes up a community. Numbers alone can’t tell that story. In July, the Globe spent a week – seven days – reporting the ripple effects of Trump’s immigration policy through Greater Boston’s immigration communities. It’s worth a revisit as we contemplate what the new year will bring.
I am very angry that my tax dollars are funding people who have no right to be in the US.
You can find our list of resources in multiple languages here.
Frilei Brás lingered in the doorway of the kitchen as his daughters, Sarah, 9, (right), Clara, 19 (second from right) and his son Rafael, 4, sat with his daughter’s boyfriend and look back at him with pained expressions shortly before he will leave the house and his family for the last time in Stoughton on June 18.Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Marcelo Gomes da Silva (center) was embraced by friends outside his Milford home on June 5, after his release from ICE detention.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
These two photos capture some of the range of emotions provoked by this era of immigration policy. The pain of a family facing imminent danger, as a father chooses to self-deport rather than risk arrest. The joy of a community reunited after a teen was detained by ICE.
Victoria McGrane can be reached at victoria.mcgrane@globe.com. Follow her @vgmac.